October 2, 2009

The term “cosmic ballet” has just taken on a whole new meaning. Apparently outer space has a soundtrack. It’s not Tchaikovsky, but … when two spinning black holes orbit each other, engaging in an invisible pas de deux, they create gravitational waves—essentially ripples in the fabric of space-time—that cause the cosmos to “ring like a drum.”

Astrophysicist Janna Levin is in hot pursuit of these orbiting drumbeats—and the information they carry about the distant universe. Predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity, gravitationalwaves have never been directly detected. But the interstellar search is on, and two far-reaching space-science experiments—LIGO and LISA—now seek to capture and “hear” the beatbox of the universe for the first time.

A professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University, Janna Levin is the author of two award-winning books A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines and How the Universe Got Its Spots, as well as dozens of scientific papers on chaos, black holes, and the early universe. Don't miss a single nanosecond of this cosmic talk! Grab your outer space boogie board and catch the groovitationalwave . . .

Before & After--Trip to far-out tunes and video--Stick around for out-of-this-world Q&A--Try our quantum cocktail of the night, the “Cosmos-politan” (It will rock you into orbit . . .)

The Secret Science Club is curated by Dorian Devins, Margaret Mittelbach, and Michael Crewdson. Dorian Devins is an NYC-based jazz singer and lyricist, and the former host of WFMU's “The Speakeasy.” Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson write about nature in the strangest of places; they are co-authors of Carnivorous Nights and Wild New York.